Three dimensional television system

DETAILED DESCRIPTION In FIG.
1, a conventional incoming color video signal (from a camera or recorder) appears on line 10.
This signal is fed to a sync generator 12 and a decoder 14.
The sync generator 12 produces the timing signals for the system which therefore is locked to the incoming video.
Decoder 14 separates the video signal into its luminance (Y) and chrominance (R-Y and B-Y) components.
As is well known, all of the required color information is contained in these complementary R-Y (magenta) and B-Y (cyan) components.
The decoder outputs are coupled to an analog-to-digital converter 16 which samples the three components and converts each sample to a discrete digital value.
For example, each analog signal may be sampled at four times the NTSC subcarrier frequency (e.
g.
about 15 MHz) with the luminance samples converted into eight bit words and the chrominance samples into four bit words.
This is indicated in FIG.
1 by the numerals "8" and "4" placed within circles at the outputs of analog-to-digital converter 16.
The sync generator 12, decoder 14 and analog-to-digital converter 16 may be conventional, commercially available devices.
The illusion of depth requires binocular disparity.
That is, the left eye must see an image displaced slightly from the image seen by the right eye.
In accordance with the invention, binocular disparity is created by the change in position, from field to field, which exists in the case of an object moving in the scene being viewed (in the United States, a field includes 262.
5 horizontal lines; a raster consists of two interlaced fields).
The way in which the invention produces a three dimensional effect is explained with reference to FIGS.
2A-2E.
Consider a scene consisting of a circle and a square (FIG.
2A), with the square being movable toward the circle.
Assume also that the square moves at a rate such that from field to field it moves the distance "d".
In this case, FIGS.
2A and 2B may be considered to represent successive fields, with FIG.
2A representing a "past" field and FIG